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12. Building an Arm |
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 In this tutorial, you will learn how to put together all you've learned so far. You will be building a contoured arm which will then be used in the next tutorials as I first discuss the creation of bones and skelegons, and then you learn to animate an object. MODELER, TURN ON THE GRID First, save your work so you can get back to where you were. Press 'd' to bring up the 'Display Options' panel. Turn on 'Show Grid' and 'Show Normals'.   button.At approximately the 0,0 mark click with the left mouse button and drag outwards to form a circle approximately one grid square big in all directions.     Go to the 'Perspective' viewport and ALT-rotate the cylinder so you can see the top. This is the time I should mention that you can also move the world view left/right/up/down (panning) using SHIFT-ALT and the mouse, and you can zoom in and out with CTRL-ALT and the mouse. LightWave's 3D interface really lets you do everything in the Perspective window. No other 3D sculpture program rivals the power of it's Modeling capabilties. Press CTRL-SHIFT-H to enter polygon mode, make sure no polygons are selected, and select the top of the cylinder. Press 'Delete' key to throw away the top. Do the same with the bottom of the cylinder (easiest way to reach it is to look down the tube, select the bottom polygon, and delete it). BUILDING A SHOULDER Expand the size of the 'Back' viewport by dragging the center bar between all viewports up and to the right and use the '.' key and 'g' plus pointing with the mouse to magnify the size of the top of the cylinder so that it is towards the left of the 'Back' viewport and the top six rows are showing.  Press CTRL-SHIFT-G to enter the 'Points' mode and make sure all points are turned off. Right click the mouse and draw a cyan circle around the top five rows of points.  Press the 'y' key or select the  button from the 'Rotate' section of the 'Modify' tab.Center the  'Rotate' cursor around the center point of the bottom row of the selected points in the 'Back' viewport. Click the left mouse button, holding it down, then drag the mouse to the right. The top five rows should pivot around the 'Rotate' cursor point until it looks like the leaning tower of Piza. Rotate it about 15 degrees (The tendency will be to rotate it too far rather than not far enough). Press the space bar to exit from 'Rotate' mode and the 'Rotate' cursor will turn into the 'Select Points' cursor  .Near the bottom row of selected points click the left mouse button and drag the mouse across all five points of that row to deselect them.  Press the 'y' key to enter the 'Rotate' mode again and again center the cursor on the center point of the bottom row of selected points (one row up from the one you just rotated). Rotate it to the right about the same amount you did the first set.  Do the same for the next three sets of points. The last set of points should be 90 degrees rotated from it's starting angle.  Highlight a set of five points at a time and move them by pressing 't' or selecting 'Move' from the 'Move' section of the 'Modify' tab. The cursor will turn into the 'Move' cursor  Press the left mouse button, hold it down, and drag to move the set of five points. Then, unhighlight those points and select another set of five points until you have them in a nice curve. Hightlight five points and use the 'y' rotate tool to get the angles just right.  Press the 'TAB' key to enter Subsurfacing mode. Go to the Perspective' viewport and you can see that the surface has turned smooth.  Enter the Polygon mode by pressing CTRL-SHIFT-H and make sure all polygons are turned off (implying that we will be working with all of the polygons). Press the CTRL-SHIFT-T to enter the 'Drag' mode. The cursor will change to the 'Drag' cursor  Go to the 'Back' viewport and move the edge points to form what feels like the side view of an arm.  Then, go to the 'Right' viewport and again shape the outside arm points to form the depth of the arm by dragging the points.  I know that seemed like quite a jump to make, but it really wasn't. You move the white dots that are along the outside contours of the cylinder by clicking on them with the left mouse button, holding it down, and dragging the mouse. You move every one of the white dots that are around the perimeter of the arm little-by-little until they start to form the shape of an arm. Then, you move the other dots inside the area so that they are equal-distanced from each other in any row. Go to the 'Perspective' viewport. Press 'd' to bring up the 'Disply Options' panel and get rid of the 'Show Grids' checkmark. Since you've only basically been modifying the outside points of two dimensions, the arm looks diamond-shaped in cross-section. Rotate the arm by pressing ALT and click-dragging the mouse button until it is at a steep angle.  The 'Sketch' mode (Just above 'Wireframe Shade' in the second drop-down menu at the top-left of the 'Perspective' viewport) will probably work best, as the contour lines will be most evident in that mode.  This will let you see the contour better as you work. Zoom the arm to the proper size and position and increase the size of the 'Perspective' viewport (I have said how in previous tutorials).  Here is where all of what you have learned will now come into play. You rotate the arm to an angle that lets you see the contours best, and you drag points by being in the 'Drag' mode, and pulling them upwards and outwards a little at a time. Zoom in with the '.' key, out with the ',' key. ,br> Rotate to a better position by pressing the ALT key and click-moving the mouse to make it rotate. You are now in the Corvette's driver's seat. This is where you say, "WHEW, I am FINALLY sculpting!" Shape the arm, climbing up the arm like it were a roadway. Once the severe dents have begun to take shape then the mind starts to see it as an arm. Rotate it to an upright position to see how it looks. At this point you should rotate the arm so that each contour line is silouetted and shape them one-by-one.  Then do the next one.  ...until you do all eight.  Then rotate back to a steep angle, modifying small contours, zooming in and out as need be. Back off again and rotate it to an upright position.  Now is the time to rotate the arm to a position that is the same as your right arm as you hold your mouse. Take off your shirt and then use your own arm to model the rest of it. As it starts getting closer to being complete, switch to 'Smooth Shaded' mode to see how it looks. Then, switch back to 'Sketch' mode and make the modifications. Back to 'Smooth Shaded' to see and there will come a time when you will say, "I'm done!".  Enter 'Polygon' mode by pressing CTRL-SHIFT-H, highlight a polygon and press ']' to select connected polygons. Press 'q' to bring up the 'Change Surface' requester and enter the surface name 'Arm'. Press 'Surface Editor' or the 'F3' key, select the Arm surface and in the 'Color' section double-click on the color square to the left of where it says 'E'. Enter 244 for Red, 214 for Green and 196 for Blue (or click on the red number with the left mouse button and drag the mouse left and right until the number reads 244, and the same with the other two numbers).  Work on the arm, comparing the arm with a real person, or photographs taken at different angles, or the image you have in your head over the years of what an arm should feel like. Switch from 'Sketch' mode to 'Smooth Shade' as you work. Many times you won't see slight imperfections until you enter the 'Smooth Shade' View. Rotating the work reveals imperfections. When working on just a fragment of a body, like this, it is hard to get the contours correct where the angle of the arm meets the chest or breast. Try to imagine that the rest of the body is there as you work. The mind exadurates things, overcompensating at all times. It is the artist's task to rein-in that horse. In the end, given time, you should be pleased with your work. Also, as you construct the rest of the body, you can always return to the modeling of the arm until you are more satisfied with it. I rotated the arm in Modeler using the Perspective View and the ALT key, then copied each image to the clipboard with a 'Print Screen', pasted into Photoshop with CTRL-V, and then arranged five rotations next to each other, sizing them so they felt more normal.  Don't feel bad if your arm doesn't look perfect. This wasn't exactly the 'animated tube' that every other tutorial does, after all. If you actually battled through that sequence of steps and came up with a realistic-looking arm, congratulations you can now call yourself a 3D sculptor. You will be needing this arm to do the next tutorial on skelegons so it is important that you save your work with 'File' menu, 'Save As...' and name it arm.lwo Here are the Scene and Object files. LightWave Arm Files |
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